Premier League Enterprise Challenge National Final 2011
This year’s final took place at White hart Lane, home of Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club and saw a range of teams both from the Premier League and the Championship taking part.
The event was a high profile event to launch Global Entrepreneurship week 14th – 19th November 2011, with a number of guest speakers at the event including Donna Cullen, Director of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, Andrew Devenport, CEO of YBI, Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Business and Enterprise, Richard Scudamore, Premier League Chief Executive and Sir Keith Mills, entrepreneur. There was also an appearance by Ledley King Captain of THFC.
The day was also hosted by Sky Sports very own Hayley McQueen and was recorded for a press release later in the year; this was a fantastic opportunity for the pupils to experience a high profile event for the very first time.
Doug Richards from Dragons Den talks to the pupil's about their business.
This year’s regional winners were Sharples High School a group of 5 students and 2 of their teachers were given the opportunity to travel to London with myself to represent Bolton in the final. The pupils had to commit to travelling down to London on the Sunday the day before the event and spent a long day travelling, setting up and practicing the days run through before returning to the North London hotel the Premier League had organized for all the teams from outside of London. It was a long first day but there was one final opportunity for the pupil’s to practice their pitch at just past 9pm on a Sunday night before they were allowed to retire for the evening.
Doug Richards from Dragons Den
The final day was to be another long one with the coach picking all the teams up from the hotel at 7:30am in the morning; this meant the students had to be up for breakfast at 6:30am. Remember these are Y10 pupils they were only aware of one 6:30 in a day, with this in mind the students were excellent. They were up and ready to go as requested and a nervous breakfast was had by all, including myself.
All the teams taking part were set up in the “Market Place” where they could display their ideas and the clubs could display their current projects. It was interesting to see the student’s initial response to being approached by professional business people, then comparing this response to how they were behaving just 20 minutes later. They were selling their idea and pitching the project to anyone who would listen, this including an Information Technology company that actually offered to design the software required for free.
After the initial opening event were the guest speakers congratulated the students on how well they had done to get this far the real event could take place. The teams were to present in reverse alphabetical order, this left Bolton fourth from last and we were to have 8 teams in the morning and 8 in the afternoon. Each team presented their pitch and then the judges quizzed them on their figures, advertising campaigns and other areas of interest. It was an interesting day and there were a number of ideas based on applications for smart phones, some other ideas based on young supporter’s memberships and then Sharples very unique idea.
Mohammed Adil Patel & Humaira Miyaji
After all the teams had presented there was a lunch break which gave the students, teachers and enterprise coordinators a well-deserved break from proceedings and also a chance to take part in a tour of the club. While the judges decided on the overall winners. The competition restarted after lunch and the winner was to be announced but not until we had the opportunity to see Michael Dawson give an interview and congratulate all the schools taking part. After another long day and with the journey home from London by coach to look forward to, the students weren’t to be successful this year. The winning team was announced as Blackpool FC who had designed an application for smart phone that would replace the match day program, while Arsenal were second place with their business that would increase the number of young fans attending matches at Arsenal in the future. The students were a little deflated but they had enjoyed the whole experience and were happy to have won the Bolton final and had the opportunity to travel to London and be part of something so prestigious.
Safwan Haji, Ellie Jarvis & Fayaz Gani
A huge well done to all the teams taking part and a special thanks to the students from Sharples High School for their commitment, behavior and overall attitude during the weekend, also a big thank you to Mr & Mrs Razzak for giving up their time to help the students both at school and on the trip to London.
All the Pupils from Sharples High School with Michael Dawson from Tottenham Hotspur FC.
Follow the link below for a video of the event.
Premier League Enterprise Challenge Regional Final
The regional final took place at the Reebok Stadium in the Platinum suite on Tuesday 1st November 2011. There were four schools in attendance with;
Little Lever High School – Wanderers Business Enterprises
Sharples High School – Complimentary Dugout Entry
Essa Academy – Essa Enterprises
St Josephs – iWanderers
The schools were treated to a special day with them arriving from 12pm and shown into the platinum suite where they would be presenting their business ideas to the judging panel. I think this was the moment when most the teams went into nervous melt down with the stage only meters away from the judges table.
The Platinum Suite
The teams were then each given an executive box for them to base themselves and practice their presentations before the main event. There followed an hour of frantic planning, checking and practicing before the main event took place.
The judges arrived with each of them having a different area of expertise that they could apply to the judging.
Darren Pratley – BWFC Player – his knowledge and love of the game was a benefit to the teams as he was able to inform them if their ideas would appeal to fans and players alike.
Chris Houghton – Eventura - brought IT and business skills from the company which specialises in information technology services.
Andy Rosler – Ideal debt solutions - brought his knowledge and understanding of how finances work within the business world.
Adrian Blackburn – Corporate Relations BWFC - was able to inform the teams on the viability of their ideas in a real life football club.
Each of the schools presented their business ideas on the stage in front of the other schools and a number of parents and grandparents who were in attendance. It was commented on how through the judges were with their questioning after each presentation and even the younger pupils in attendance were not spared the “dragons” questions.
The judges moved to the back of the room to confirm their judging calculations and while they were discussing each business idea they were all agreed that the confidence and skills demonstrated by all the teams was very encouraging for the future of business and enterprise in Bolton. As with all competitions there can only be one winner and the competition was very close but a clear winner emerged. Their business idea really did get the judges talking especially Adrian who is very knowledgeable with regards to viable promotions to football clubs.
The winner of the Premier League Enterprise Challenge 2011
Sharples High School “Complimentary Dugout Entry”
Congratulations to the team from Sharples High School very well done. They will now travel to London and White Hart Lane home of Tottenham Hotspurs FC during Global Entrepreneurship Week 14TH November to compete against a further 12 clubs from across the country.
A big congratulations to all the teams who entered this year, I hope to see all the schools and also some of the contestants again next year.
Also a big thank you to all the judges who made time in their busy schedules to judge the competition, thank you Darren, Adrian, Chris and Andrew.
Premier League Enterprise Challenge 2011
St Josephs School Horwich
St Joseph's ran their Premier League enterprise challenge a little differently from other schools; they opened the challenge up to all of their year 9's and used it as an enterprise day. The idea was to allow all the pupils to begin the challenge in the morning and choose the best 6 to go through into the presentation stage in the afternoon, this didn't quite work out as the competition was so close with some very good ideas coming forward it was decided 7 groups would actually move onto the second stage. The teams had some motivation for getting through to the final rounds with a visit from some of the first teams stars in the form of Zat Knight and Nigel Reo Coker.
Zat Knight and Paul Makinson chat to one of the 7 groups to progress to the school final at St Joseph's High School.
During the afternoon session the pupils spent some time researching their business ideas and putting together a presentation which they would then present to the whole of their year group. Each of the teams did a fantastic job in a short period of time and worked very hard to ensure their presentations were ready for the afternoon session.
Nigel Reo Coker and Chris Nicholson talk to the school finalists about their product design.
There were a number of good business ideas presented during the afternoon but unfortunately only one could go through to the final, iwanderers took their idea and developed it even adding some of the things Nigel Reo Coker suggested during his time with them, let’s hope he doesn't ask for any royalties! All the teaching staff involved with the day were very impressed with the all the year 9 pupils and some ideas and work developed were very interesting. Paul, myself and the players enjoyed the experience and would like to wish St Joseph's good luck in the final.
Zat Knight, Nigel Reo Coker, Paul Makinson and Chris Nicholson with the 7 groups from St Joseph's High School.
Essa Academy
The first of the school finals took place on Friday 14th October at Essa Academy with teams from across the age range taking part we had the very new Year 7's to the older Year 10's taking part in the challenge showing that this challenge is about ideas and working together and not about age. I had been and delivered the challenge to the school only 2 weeks previously and from the amount of work the teams have put in each individual must have been very busy.
I had been very impressed with a number of ideas that the pupil's had come up with on the delivery day and was keen to see how they had developed over time and I have to admit I wasn't disappointed. The pupil's from each group had looked into their idea and researched the market audience developing each of their plans to cater for the needs and requirements of the match day experience. Each of the groups made their presentations and the standard across the board was very good, with a number of individuals from each group standing out as confident and ready for a bright future in business or enterprise.
Unfortunately there can only be one winner from each school and this year at Essa that award goes to Essa Enterprises who have developed a fantastic idea (which you will see at the final on November 1st at the Reebok Stadium). Not only was their idea a very desirable match day enhancer but there delivery, research and design were excellent. They were so confident and well-practiced that I was blown away and believed them to be Year 8 or 9 when in fact they were Year 7 pupils. They were a credit to their teachers and their school and I look forward to meeting them again here at the Reebok.
Congratulations a very well done to everyone who took part, I hope you try again next year.
Sharples High School
As part of the on-going Premier League Enterprise Challenge, Sharples School entered a group of year 10 ICT and design students to compete in the competition. This was good for the group as the research and marketing required for the competition fitted in nicely with the work they had been doing in Mr Razzak’s class. There were over 20 students taking part in the competition and they were split into 4 teams who all came up with very original ideas.
All the competitors from Sharples High Schol
The standard of presentation skills was very good overall and the pupils looked to have done a lot of work since the last time I had seen them when I introduced the competition. The presentations were judged by Chris Nicholson (Enterprise Coordinator) Mrs Wright (Head Teacher) and Mr Savage (Deputy Head). Yet again the standard was very high and the pupils confidence while presenting was a surprise not just for myself but also for the schools Head and Deputy head. The winning group had the ingenious idea of complimentary dugout entry competition run each game with a texting service used to create revenue while offering fans the opportunity to sit in the best seats in the house. Well done to the CODE team and good luck for the final in November.
Little Lever High School
The Premier League Enterprise Challenge took place very late at Little Lever this year with me delivering the introduction to the year 10’s taking place on 20/10/11. This left those taking part with a huge hill to climb in respect of the amount of work they would have to do to be ready for the final less than two weeks away.
They had 6 teams taking part in the challenge and there were a wide variety of ideas developed including loyalty cards for Bolton Wanderers fans and heated seats to keep fans warm on those cold and windy days at the Reebok.
I was told that a number of the groups had been very busy over the half term break and they had been putting a lot of work into their presentations and business plans. Taking into consideration the time scale allowed for the project the presentation and ideas the pupils came up with were exceptionally good and showed how creative young people can be when they have the opportunity.
Unfortunately there can only be one winner from each school and when I went back to judge the finals along with Miss Peet and Mr Hewitt there were some nervous looking faces. The pupils had obviously been busy and their presentations were interesting, informative and sometimes entertaining. We had to pick an outright winner to represent the school at the final (the following day) and the prize went to Wanderers Business Enterprise with their ear piece which allowed fans to watch the game but also to listen to commentary, get statistics and learn about the rules of the game in the process.
Well done to all the teams taking part and a special well done to the winners, enjoy your trip to the Reebok stadium.
The Premier League Enterprise Challenge (PLEC)
The Premier League Enterprise Challenge (PLEC) is an annual event sponsored by the PL it has been running at other clubs across the country for the past 2 years and this year will for the first time see schools from Bolton take part in the competition.
Pupils are challenged to design a business solution around a current theme set by the PL.
This years challenge is;
“Taking into consideration new technologies and designs, what would you implement to enhance the supporter/match day experience at Premier League matches?”
1. School competition held at each school to determine which team will represent their school at the next stage.
2. Semi-final held at the Reebok stadium with all the schools competing against each other in front of a large audience.
3. Premier League Enterprise Challenge Final held at White Hart Lane home of Tottenham Hotspurs FC.
It is an exciting competition and the 100+ pupils taking part have shown great imagination, drive and enterprise throughout the development stages. The school finals begin this week with the semi-final taking place on November 1st at the Reebok Stadium, it looks set to be an exciting afternoon with some of the next generation of Bolton's entrepreneurs show casing their talents and abilities.